Matthew 5:30 states, "And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell."
Everyone who I have ever heard speak of this passage always talks about how it doesn't mean to literally cut off your hand. It is hyperbole. While I don't wish to see Christian amputees running around everywhere, I don't think we should be toning down the significance of this passage.
Let me put it in the medical light. When a disease is discovered in a specific body part, lets say the hand, it potentially will destroy the hand and then spread to the rest of the body. Doctors will attempt to isolate the disease in the hand until it can be cured, but if there is no way that the disease can be isolated, the decision is made to remove the hand. Why? Because it is better to live without a hand then to not live at all.
The problem is people love their hand to much. They think of all the conveniences they would have to miss out on if they didn't have their hand. Writing, picking up things, and simple tasks would be much more difficult. It would be hard to play catch with your children, or even pick them up for that matter. When you focus on these comforts it causes you to lose sight of the fact that these are easy sacrifices to make when keeping the hand means death. Your children would rather have handless you then not have you at all.
Same thing with sin. It can enter one area of life and eventually it will devour your whole body and bring you to death if you don't rid yourself of it. Say you struggle with sexual sin. It may start isolated and seem harmless, but the truth is if it isn't dealt with it will lead to death. Why you ask? Because you begin to love that sin more then you love God. It becomes an idol in your life. I'm not saying that if you struggle it will lead to death, I am saying if you don't repent and battle to rid yourself of it, it will lead to death. Well how do you cut out sexual sin? Maybe it has to do with media and technology. Maybe you need to spend time away from the opposite sex and just spend time praying about it. Maybe you need someone in your life who knows every move you make so that you can't sin in secret anymore. You know what sparks that sin in your life.
Here is where you probably are thinking about how much you love your "hand". How could you live with no computer or television? How bad would life be if you had no contact with the opposite sex? The problem is that we love our sins, which again is a terrible form of idolatry. But it is better to rid yourself of all these comforts then to be thrown into hell. We are so near sighted it is hard to see. It is time we start believing in the promises that God has given to us, promises of eternal life. We need to believe that He alone is good and can preserve our lives, and cut out everything that prevents us from being near to Him. If we don't cut things out, we will die.
So I hope that you don't take the words of Jesus lightly. They are not too extreme. If you do see a place where your right hand is keeping you from God, I pray that you would realize that it is so much better to lop the hand off right then and there. Same with anything else in life. It is better to sacrifice a hand in order to save the soul.
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